Newspaper Page Text
Page 8 THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE December 26, 1986
Pulitzer Prize winner
Bernstein details famed reportorial effort
bv Mitch Earle
l SI contributing writer
Celebrated Watergate reporter
Carl Bernstein returned to Atlan
ta last week to scold the Ameri
can press for not practicing basic
journalism.
Speaking to 500 members of
the Atlanta Jewish Federation’s
Young Leadership Council and
guests, Bernstein said the press,
and especially television, doesn’t
stick around long enough on a
given subject to find out w hat has
happened.
“Reporting is not stenography.
It’s the best obtainable version of
the truth, and it usually involves
wearing out some shoe leather.”
Bernstein said there have been
some improvements in television
news, citing Ted Turner’s CNN
as one of them. But generally, the
three networks “glitz up" the
daily news, and the TV “stars"
have become more important than
the news they present.
The 1972 Pulitzer Prize winner
said he and Washington Post col
league Bob Woodward were ac
curately portrayed in the movie
version of their bestseller, “All
the President’s Men," as wearing
out shoe leather in pursuing basic
fact-gathering.
He and Woodward started from
the bottom and worked their way
up. They interviewed the same
people that the FBI and prosecu
tors talked with, but did so in the
witnesses’ homes and at night.
In this way, they were able to
obtain more information because
the witnesses did not feel the
pressure of answering questions
during the day in government
offices, Bernstein said.
Of the 2,000 reporters in
Washington, D C., in the eariv
1970s. Bernstein and Woodward
were two of only 14 reporters
assigned to Watergate full-time
during the first six months of the
unfolding scandal. Only six of
the 14 were doing investigative
reporting, Bernstein added.
“We did basic, empirical police
reporting,” Bernstein said, dis
missing the awed mystique of the
press during the Watergate era.
Wearing long, greying hair,
Bernstein told The Temple audi
ence t hat it was “good to be back
in the Jewish community of At
lanta." Bernstein is a former Dis
trict 5 AZA Aleph Ciadol.
After his distinguished career
at the Washington Post, Bern
stein went on to become the
Washington bureau chief lor ABC
News. He is currently working
on a book on the Joseph Mc
Carthy era. which he said will be
available in fall 1987.
He told the enthusiastic crowd
about one of his early interchanges
with tormer Attorney General
John Mitchell. Three months after
the break-in of the Watergate
hotel, Bernstein, at the age of 28,
had learned that Mitchell con
trolled secret funds for use in
countering Nixon’s political op
ponents. Upon asking the attor
ney general to comment over the
phone, Mitchell responded, “Jeee-
sus!" Bernstein then read him the
first paragraph of his unprece
dented story, to which Mitchell
again replied, “Jeee-sus!”
On the Watergate beat, Bern
stein said he discovered that the
Nixon White House was organ
ized along the same lines as the
Soviet KGB, that is, shrouded in
secrecy: secret funds, political
sabotage. White House burglars,
surveillance, wiretapping, and
obstruction of justice in the at-
WASHINGTON -President
Reagan has signed an executive
order reducing Israel's annual
payment of interest on its indebt
edness to the United States by
about SI. 100 million over the
next four years but the reduced
amounts will be added to Israel's
borrowings for payment later.
The president's order, signed
Dec. 9. is based on existing legis
lative authoritv for restructuring
of loans. An official announce
ment is to be made once details
are completed on the complicated
financial arrangements for six
countries on the varied interest
rates on loans to them, this re
porter was informed by compe
tent sources following a report in
London.
In effect, the order follows the
Carl Bernstein
tempted cover-up.
As with the Nixon administra
tion, the present administration
is utilizing the effective tactic of
angrily maligning the press and
making its conduct the issue,
Bernstein said. Meanwhile, he
added, Reagan and his aides
sidestep the substantive issues
put to them.
“For six years, (Reagan) has
routinely blamed the press for
proposal of Sen. Daniel Inouye
(D-Hawaii) who had recommended
more than a year ago that the
interest burden on Israel be
reduced by cutting the rates car
ried on its debts to the current
rate. Inouye’s proposal was
strongly supported by Sen. Bob
Kasten (R-Wis.), chairman of
the Senate Subcommittee on
Foreign Operations.
H owever, the president's action,
which affects the interest on loans
to a half-dozen countries which
borrowed U.S. funds to buy
American military equipment and
ser\ ices, is based on the adminis
tration's desire to ease Egypt’s
burden. Israel, in effect, is aided
by the assistance primarily de
signed to help the financially dis
tressed government in Cairo.
The order is limited to the U.S. .
Foreign Military Sales program,
this country’s and h.s problems.”
Bernstein contended. Ariel Sharon
and Menachem Begin did the
same thing after the Beirut inva
sion. Thev lied about only desir
ing to go 25 kms. into Lebanon,
when their objective all along
was to reach Beirut.
However. Israel “relies on the
truth for its existence and to keep
it free," Bernstein argued. Still,
debate is lacking over Israel's
actions and this is harmful to the
state of Israel and presents a
problem within the American
Jewish community.
The present Iranian arms crisis
grew out of the broad policies
and attitudes of the Nixon and
Reagan administrations. Day-
to-day operations are conducted
in secret and with contempt for
Congress, the public and the
press, Bernstein stated.
“Make no mistake. (CIA Di
rector) William Casey's concern
and Ronald Reagan's concern
today are not about national
security.”
The Iranian arms deal has
been evident for two years, Bern
stein said, as has been Reagan’s
private funding of "freedom figh
ters” in Nicaragua. The real story
involves the United States’ covert
operations in Latin America.
under which Israel owes about
$5,500 million; Egypt, $4,600
million; Turkey, $1,400 million,
and South Korea. Pakistan and
Spain, each in the neighborhood
of more than $500 million, these
countries have been paying
interest of between 12 and 13
percent on their loans. The order
reduces the rate to the present
prime rate of about 7 to I'/i
percent.
As a result, Israel will pay
about $200 million less in interest
during the 1987 fiscal year which
began last Oct. I, and about $.300
million less in each of the next
three years ending in 1990. Israel
and other countries will still have
to repay their original debts and
then reimburse the U.S. Treas
ury for the difference between
the new and old interest totals.'
This means that the $1,100 mil-
Analogizing to Watergate,
Bernstein said the press made a
big mistake then in looking f or
“the smoking gun. 1 would hate
to see the same thing happen
here.”
Reporters need to ask how
these secret channels got set
up in the first place and what was
l.t. Oliver North's understanding
regarding funding to the contra
rebels in Nicaragua.
Yet, the press’s immersion into
"an orgy of self-congratulation"
during Watergate and its eleva
tion of the trivial over the signifi
cant today has caused it to cover
what the media believes readers
want to see and hear, rather than
what is news.
“This is the time for the press
to look at its own conduct, as
well as the conduct of the Presi
dent and his men.”
Rather than being too aggres
sive, the press has been too pas
sive and lazy, he said. Journalists
must get back to basics and wear
out some shoe leather. In the
final hour, the press must do as
John Mitchell once told Bern
stein, “Watch what they do and
not what they say.”
Mitch Earle is Editor of Geor
gia Law Letter. —Editor.
lion Israel won’t pay over the
next four years will be repaid
sometime in the next decade,
with the current interest rate
being applied to that amount.
Egypt is to benefit by annual
savings of more than $200 mil
lion annually to 1990 to help
replenish its depleted hard cur
rency reserves. “The U.S. action
is understood to have been pri
marily motivated out of concern
for Egypt's parlous financial
state,” the Financial Times of
London said in a despatch front
Jerusalem. "Israel, in effect,
climbed on the back of the Egyp
tian deal."
In the last three years both
Egypt and Israel have been re
ceiving military and economic
assistance as grants without
repayment. Israel receives $3 bil
lion and Egypt $2,150 million.
Reagan restructures Israel’s indebtedness
by Joseph Polakoff
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Larry Melnick
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